Candlelight
by handmedownrobes
Summary: It was eight o'clock on a Tuesday, and Draco Malfoy was drowning. A forbidden dance ignites a flame within him, but will he allow himself to pursue it? Dramione, AU.


_A/N:__ Yay! I'm so glad to be writing again :) This one's a short one, but hopefully it'll go somewhere interesting. I've got most of the second chapter done with, but it needs some tweaks before it's post-worthy. Enjoy, and as always, reviews make my day :D_

_Chapter One: Ballet Slippers_

It was eight o'clock on a Tuesday, and Draco Malfoy was drowning.

The dank stone walls were the very same ones that had encased him for nine and a half months a year, every year, for almost seven years. The harsh _clack_ his boots made when they came into contact with the rough wooden floors was the same sound that heralded every step he had ever taken here. His fingertips still brushed the same fine wool of his robes, as they had in his earliest memories. _These robes are your symbol, Draco. This garment is the only outward sign that you, my son, are a wizard. It is what separates you from the unworthy, the dirty animals that cover this earth like rodents. Wear it always, so that they may know who walks by them on crowded, filthy streets. Wear it well._

But these were not the same robes his father had given him that day, his fourth birthday. These robes had been shoved into his hands as he kneeled on the dirty ground, his eyes fixed on the beetles and worms that danced below his face, so that he could keep himself from screaming, or worse, from staring up into those soulless red eyes that hovered above him in a bone white face.

_Who is the animal now, father?_

He could feel the cloak choking him. His pulse sprung from his veins, his heart felt sickeningly light and dangerously fast. His world was spinning too quickly; his breath was sucked from his throat before it could find its way into his lungs. The heavy fabric was both soaking wet and startlingly dry—he could feel it dragging him down as murky blackness began to dot his vision. The only part of Draco's mind untouched by this new brand of madness wondered absently if he was having a panic attack.

A single note cut through the haze in his mind, followed by another. Draco froze, every fiber of his being trained on the music. A hundred violins floated slowly on a stream of sound, their notes spinning slow circles around Draco's mind. Suddenly, the sound broke. Draco could feel the instruments screaming, wailing, and then a barrage of voices moaning in a language he couldn't understand dove into the snarling ocean of strings. The drummers pounded on his heart; with each beat he could feel his blood flowing again. He felt himself being pulled toward the sound, as though a rope had been tied around his waist and was pulling him to something he couldn't identify.

He could not hope to fight it. He did not want to.

Warm light tumbled out from the doorway of the old classroom, where the door was cracked open. He knelt before it, pushing the door slightly, not wanting to disturb the players.

But when he peered inside, he found no grand orchestras, no sea of violins singing in harmony, no solemn choirs swaying in time to the words that fell from their lips. All he saw was her. And he was immediately grateful for it, for she took up every inch of his vision. She filled him up so completely that were there a single other soul occupying the room, he might have burst from trying to hold it all in his sight. The pale curves of her legs, stretching gracefully, cutting through the air around them, spun so quickly that his head spun with them. Her snaking arms, her curving torso, her feet that seemed to kiss the ground but never meet it—each part of her body moved with a fluid grace which left him unable to breathe.

And yet, there was something familiar about her.

He knew this girl. She turned, so absorbed in her dance that she did not notice the pale fingers that grasped the edge of the door, nor the solemn gray eye hovering in the darkness just beyond it. Her hair, which he instinctively knew he'd seen a thousand times, though he couldn't say where, fluttered as it danced away from the hair band that held it captive in a messy bun atop her head. It was every color he'd ever seen—almond and candlelight and dirt and the worn wood of floorboards. Flecks of brown sugar dotted her nose and cheeks while peach blossom lips parted slightly to blow away an errant strand of hair. A pair of wide eyes, which were dark and light, calm and tempestuous, and the most brilliant shade of brown he'd ever seen, stared almost dreamily at something he could not see. She seemed to look _within_, and whatever she found there gave her serenity.

_Granger. It _can't_ be. _

But it was. She was, at once, the most brilliant and terrifying thing he'd ever seen. From the delicate silk slippers around her feet to the thick mess of hair atop her head, it was Hermione Granger. Draco wondered if this was what being struck by lightning felt like.

Draco crept silently away from the door, sliding over to the adjacent wall and sitting up against it. His eyes slid closed as his mind cruelly replayed each second of the dance he'd spied, each movement carefully preserved in precise detail. He could still see the way the light from the floating candles hovering above her cast shadows over every curve on her body. If this was perdition for his sins, Draco wished for fire and brimstone. Anything was better than this—this horrible montage that never paused and never ended, whereupon Hermione Granger's body was cast into permanent relief on the slate of his consciousness.

_Draco, I want you to listen very carefully_, his father had intoned, his features stern. _When you arrive at Hogwarts, you will meet a number of… undesirable children. Among them is the Mudblood, Hermione Granger. I tried to have her admission revoked, but the board voted against me. You must either avoid her, or take great care to ensure that she is aware that she is not welcome in our world. Do you understand what I'm saying? She is filth. She does not deserve to walk this earth, never mind wave a wand and pretend that she is a witch. _Draco could still hear the inflections in his father's voice, the subtle hints that made it clear that he was upset. Draco could still see the tightness in his eyes and lips, and the way he'd never seen his father look so uncomfortable. But all of these things, which should have given him pause, or at least grasped his attention, slipped away like water over pebbles. As soon as he'd thought them, they slithered away, leaving him with only the vision of a slim, pale dancer twirling among candles.

Draco sat there for hours, entranced in his own thought process. He couldn't figure out what it meant, and where he would go from here. Could he bear to heed the call of the black mark on his arm again, knowing what he now knew? Could he look his lord in the face again—or even his father, for that matter—with the vision of Hermione Granger dancing behind his eyes? And if he couldn't, then what could he do?

Dark shadows loomed above him, around him, inside of him—he did not notice when she slipped out of the classroom. He did not notice her gasp, nor did he see her kneel on the floor in front of him, her lips pursed and her eyes wary.

"Malfoy?"

The shadows dissipated with an almost audible _snap_, leaving him alone in the dark hallway with a very confused Hermione Granger.

"Malfoy, are you alright?" She queried cautiously.

Draco mentally shook himself out of his stupor and sneered. "Does it bloody well look like I'm alright, Granger?"

She glared, then rolled her eyes. "Of course not, but it isn't as though anyone would care if you weren't alright, given your generally nasty personality and massive superiority complex," she snapped, lifting herself up slowly. "And what the hell were you doing down here, anyways? The Slytherin commons are _that _way," she said sharply, one hand on her hip and the other pointing down the hallway. "And it's almost eleven, way past curfew…" Her gaze turned suspicious. "What are you up to, Malfoy?"

Draco had had enough of this. "I was watching you dance, Granger." He looked up at her, trying to make her understand without _telling_ her—he wasn't sure he could.

Her belligerent expression faded into incredulity. "You—_what_?"

Draco washed the sneer from his features. "You heard me. I heard the music, so I went to see what it was." He omitted the part about nearly having a massive panic attack, if that's what it was, but he figured it was still the truth in most respects.

Every part of her visibly stilled, as though she was waiting for something. When the silence became too heavy, just as Draco was about to find some excuse to leave, she growled, "And?"

Draco's eyebrows rose. "And, it was a nice dance." _The mighty king of understatements, right there, Draco_, his mind sneered at him.

She looked, if possible, more stunned than before. "You—you _liked_ it?"

Draco nodded slowly, wondering if this was to be his death warrant. "It wasn't bad, for a Muggleborn." _Mudblood_, his mind screamed. _Call her a Mudblood or she'll think you've gone soft!_

Hermione rolled her eyes and huffed. "What, Malfoy, no 'Mudblood' today? Don't tell me you're going easy on me for my birthday," she taunted.

Seizing his opportunity, Draco opened his mouth to insult her, but instead the words tumbled from his lips without his consent. "It's your birthday, Granger?"

Neither of them expected to hear him say that, if the look in her eyes was any indication. "Well, yes," she said slowly, visibly steeling herself for a verbal blow.

Draco lifted himself up gingerly, exhaustion blanketing his bones. "Happy Birthday, Granger," he said quietly as he turned to walk back to his room.


End file.
